WikiLeaks: A gusher of information for no apparent public purpose
The latest destructive flood of WikiLeaks looks like a chance for Julian Assange to grab the spotlight.
The strange case of WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, and the publication of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks website, has captured public attention at all levels. Assange, reportedly hiding out in Great Britain, is an Australian wanted in Sweden on rape and sexual assault charges, which he asserts are more associated with his massive document dump than with his alleged violations. He has gone so far as to suggest the United States is attempting to assassinate him.
What is going on here and what happens next?
There have been related disclosures of confidential information in the past, but most have been pre-Internet and not so quickly disseminated globally. Some also have been associated with diplomatic cables.
The United States, which had been neutral in World War I, was drawn into that conflict in part because of the public surfacing of a so-called Zimmermann Telegram — a purported German diplomatic cable promising Mexico great concessions if it entered the war on the German side. Most analysts today agree that the Zimmermann Telegram was in fact a clever British fake, which helped turn U.S. opinion in favor of intervening on the French-British side. And readers of World War II histories are aware of the many phony documents and messages employed by all sides to mislead their adversaries during that conflict.
Then there are the multiple examples of U.S. whistleblowers who, after the fact, published information that had been secret at the time they received it.
- Whittaker Chambers, a senior Time magazine editor, wrote a Cold War-era exposé detailing his activities as a Communist Party member and Soviet spy from 1932-7, in which he identified a number of U.S. public officials, including Alger Hiss, as fellow Communist operatives.
- Philip Agee, a Central Intelligence Agency case officer in Latin America from 1957-68, wrote a 1975 book, "Inside the Company," which related alleged CIA activities during his period of service. Afterward he fled to Cuba, where he died two years ago. The book listed a number of overseas CIA agents, at least one of whom was murdered immediately after his role was made public.
- Daniel Ellsberg, a Pentagon analyst, released an extensive document and cable file regarding Vietnam, dubbed the Pentagon Papers, which in 1971 were published in The New York Times. The papers were influential in turning U.S. opinion against the war.
- Diplomat Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, a CIA analyst, were at center stage during the second Iraq war after Wilson wrote a New York Times essay disclosing that he had been dispatched to Africa to discover whether yellowcake uranium was being supplied to Iraq and, in fact, had found no evidence that the suspected transfers were taking place. Plame, in turned out, had recommended her husband for the exploratory mission. She, in turn, was publicly identified as a CIA analyst by Bush administration officials.
Their advocates presented the whistleblowers as heroes of their time. The reality, however, was more complicated in each case.
Chambers, it turned out, was a true-believer type who turned from Communism to devout Catholicism. Moreover, he had murky sexual involvements with some of the subjects of his accusations. Agee had been in trouble at the CIA because of a drinking problem, compulsive womanizing among U.S. embassy female personnel, and financial difficulties. Ellsberg had been a Pentagon analyst for many years before he decided to publicly release documents with which he had been working. He, too, had a complex personal life and was a notorious attention seeker.
Wilson and Plame, too, sought public attention. It was well known before Wilson's New York Times piece that Saddam Hussein did not, in fact, possess a nuclear-weapons capability. Plame's alleged "outing" as a CIA staffer was no big deal. She was posted at CIA's Langley headquarters and not overseas. The identities of CIA headquarters staff members are about as secret in Washington, D.C., as the list of taxicab companies in the phone book. The previously obscure Wilson and Plame have parlayed their roles in the matter into a Vanity Fair photo spread, big lecture fees, and even a recent movie glamorizing the episode.
Chambers was a private citizen when he made his disclosures. Agee, Ellsberg, Wilson, and Plame, however, were past or present U.S. government officials who knew they were breaching security rules which they had explicitly accepted as part of their jobs.
Nonetheless, did their disclosures serve the public interest? Chambers' accusations, it turned out, were mainly true. But they fed a McCarthyist surge in the nation's capital, which led to accusations against many who were innocent. Agee's allegations about CIA conduct in Latin America also had substance to them. Although they were not surprising in themselves, they jeopardized the lives and safety of many colleagues Agee left behind in the CIA. Ellsberg and The New York Times did a real public service with his documents. Released in volume, and covering a long period, they disclosed a long pattern of U.S. government mistakes and misjudgments in Vietnam. Wilson and Plame were split-second footnotes in a massive information flow pointing to the same conclusions regarding alleged Iraqi nuclear programs.
Diplomatic cables are a different chapter in the story of confidential information disclosures. Media commentators, in discussing the WikiLeaks matter, have shown a curious ignorance about what these cables are and are not.
Thousands of such cables go to and from Washington, D.C. and U.S. embassies daily. They cover such diverse subjects as milk production in the host country, military capabilities and troop movements, capital flows, conversations with government officials and private citizens, and assessments of foreign-government intentions and objectives. From time to time they also include assessments of foreign leaders' characters and behavior patterns. (Hence Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's joking remark that foreign counterparts had told her, "You should see what our cables say about you.") Yes, outright U.S. spying takes place, just as foreign partners — even our closest allies — spy on us. But much of this is not contained in the daily cable flow.
The current WikiLeaks disclosures include cable excerpts dealing with corruption among Afghan and African leaders and the alpha-male habitudes of Russian leader Valery Putin. No surprises there. Brief embarrassments maybe, but no more.
The potential problems lie elsewhere. Are foreign governments or intelligence services inserting their own mischievous messages (like the notorious Zimmermann Telegram) into the WikiLeaks flow? The next WikiLeaks dump will reportedly deal with financial and economic activity undertaken by private banks and corporations in Western countries. Will the data be real, or calculated misinformation?
Back in the ancient past I served as a Pentagon intelligence analyst and then in U.S. Executive Branch positions where I saw the daily cable flow. But back then the information was distributed in hard copy — in written form, to a closely controlled list of people who were cleared to receive it. Now (and in particular, since the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and the mandate that information be shared widely and electronically) access is wider and easier — and leaks are harder to trace.
I am not among those who view the unauthorized release of information as something which simply should not happen. I recall in particular two instances early in 1965, when as assistant to Vice President Humphrey I read incoming cables which I regarded as particularly wrongheaded. If they had been generally released at the time, they might have been met with more skepticism, and big mistakes could have been avoided.
First, an incoming cable from National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, who was in Vietnam at the time, advocated massive retaliations and strikes against North Vietnam in the wake of small-scale Viet Cong attacks on a U.S. barracks at Pleiku. I wondered, What was Bundy thinking? These were the kinds of skirmishes that happen in this kind of conflict and were no reason to escalate to general war. But that is exactly what happened when, in followup, President Johnson took Bundy's advice and launched massive air attacks against North Vietnam.
Later I saw incoming cables from U.S. Ambassador Tapley Bennett in the Dominican Republic. He warned that a pending coup there could result in establishment in the D.R. of a Castro-allied regime. Bennett was wrong. The contest was between two factions, neither of which had Castro ties. LBJ, however, bought into Bennett's thesis, and U.S. Marines were sent to the Dominican Republic, reestablishing a gunboat-diplomacy tradition that our Latin American partners thought we had abandoned.
The WikiLeaks documents are not in this category. The dump is so massive, and so undifferentiated, that it could only have been undertaken for destructive purposes. The same will be true if other countries' documents, or private financial/economic information, come flooding onto the Internet.
Who knows what Assange's motives may be? They may involve nothing more than his personal desire for celebrity. In any case, there is today no equivalent of the New York Times editorial board which, in 1971, considered the matter long and thoroughly before deciding to publish the Pentagon Papers. For good or ill, the WikiLeaks information is coming in gushers, with no telling whether it is true, false, or in-between.
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Comments:
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 8:24 a.m. Inappropriate
Of course there is a need for secrecy , however much of this information is directly contrary to stated U S policy . The United States is being looted .
One must ask where the press has been ? While the only venue that has a franchise , via the freedom of press to provide a check and balance on unchecked power . This is much more an indictment of an apathetic news media . Assange is just the canary in the coal mine .
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 8:46 a.m. Inappropriate
I,ve watched this whole affair with disbelief.The exposure of the vast corruption of two wars is laid bare; all the media, with few exceptions, can do is attack the messenger.
Why not raise hell about the Afgan vice president who hauls fifty thousand dollars of our tax money to Quatar for his pleasure, in a suitcase no less!
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 9:48 a.m. Inappropriate
The whole story has more than enough drama for a media sensation. Allegation of sexual misconduct, assassination attempts (even if nothing more than off-the-cuff remarks by certain politicians and officials), cyber warfare, and Assanges's jet-setting escapades. And then there's the content of the cables themselves: embarrassing remarks about world leaders, gross corruption, and Machiavellian dealing.
Some matters are quite serious, such as spying on UN officials and the efforts on the part of Arab leaders to provoke an attack on Iran. Other matters, such as speculation about Silvio Berlusconi's personal life, can scarcely be called news.
In all, I don't see the release of the cables as being a positive thing. Not so much because direct harm has resulted--the only real damage I've seen so far has been to the reputation of some leaders--but because of future consequences. In order for a country to conduct effective foreign policy, diplomats need to be able to communicate frankly, which means that their messages don't go beyond their target argument. Imagine, if you work in the marketing department of a major company, or at a city hall, or in any other kind of professional setting, if every memo you wrote could become publicly available. It would be very hard to do your job.
This whole affair reminds me a bit of the barefoot bandit story. People seem to be attracted to Assange's roguish escapades, though without full consideration of the consequences.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 10:26 a.m. Inappropriate
Mr. Van Dyk's "daddy knows best" diatribe begs the question. He ignores the 800-pound gorilla standing right next to him looking down; the monstrous lies being told the world by the modern-day fascists.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 11:40 a.m. Inappropriate
Good piece. I think you stretch hard to find flaws in Whittaker Chambers; he was gay, probably somewhat unstable but blaming Senator McCarthy on WC seems needlessly unkind. I agree with you that there is very little surprising (surprising in an important way) in the total Wikileaks package. The caution is, of course, that it has not all been published.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 11:58 a.m. Inappropriate
Pepper, if nothing else this episode shows that security on these papers are pretty lax. Want to bet that they haven't already been seen by others willing to pay for privilege? The company I work for doesn't allow me access to such a wide range of communication, and we've been told not to write anything that we wouldn't want to see in court. That standard wouldnt work very well for diplomats, but considering that such cables could be leaked ought to be a guide for style and content.
Former Democrat TVD takes the conservative line on Plame, calling a man cited by Bush pere as a hero in his diplomatic service as "obscure" and calling Plame an "attention getter", a woman who faithfully served this country in secret until after her name was brought, just as legally as the Wikileaks, to the attention of the press by Cheney and Rove and Company. Shame on you Ted, it's because of Democrats like you conservative Republicans have dominated the politics of the last 30 or more years.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 12:22 p.m. Inappropriate
NickBob: the security implications of what happened are significant, and I think we shall see soon enough what they are. In some sense, this is another case of the solution to yesterday's problem laying the groundwork for tomorrow's problem. After 9/11, intelligence analysts determined that one of the key causes of the intelligence failures was the inability for different agencies to communicate properly. Hence the federal government installed mechanisms that allowed easier communication between agencies. But no doubt those very mechanisms helped make it possible for a rogue to acquire and release a quarter of a million diplomatic cables.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 12:37 p.m. Inappropriate
Pepper, the "intelligence failure" that resulted in 9/11 was the failure of anyone in the U.S. Government to act on the idea that, following the fall of the Soviet Union, the biggest threat to the U.S. would come from terrorist organizations based in the Middle East...
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 12:52 p.m. Inappropriate
Pepper, we agree on what you say. One would hope that the current administration deals with this issue more effectively than they've dealt with Wall Street or the Republican opposition, or than the last administration dealt with the same problem.
Had LBJ taken a wiser course on Vietnam, he would taken his rightful place along side of FDR & Truman as Democratic icons and great presidents for his truly historic achievement of getting civil rights through Congress and his work bringing poverty down in our rich country. If only someone who had read these memos and understood the folly they contained had shown them to a reporter at the time. Too bad no one like that worked in his administration.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 1:27 p.m. Inappropriate
One item of the Wikileaks episode has me particularly troubled. Namely that it now appears that there is a conspiracy (most likely US government sponsored) to make the Wikileaks internet server inaccessible. Over the past few days, we've seen Amazon.com remove it from their server. Paypal removed access to it. "Hackers" supposedly are currently making the site inaccessible.
It seems to me that the bigger risk of this episode is exposing how the internet is becoming more controlled by those who have a vested interest in controlling the flow and release of information--whether they are governments or business interests.
None of the wikileaks information that has been exposed yet is not of what I'd term a "clear and present danger". Embarrassing maybe. So why is there such effort to limit its dissemination?
Am I the only one who sees this as the slippery-slope which leads to a "big brother" control of the internet?
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 3:05 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks for the comments. One word on Wilson and Plame. I do not take anyone's "line" but instead weigh information independently and reach conclusions of my own. A novel idea, I know.
Wilson and Plame were both government officials operating under security requirements of their jobs when Wilson undertook his mission to find out about "yellowcake." The mission itself was classified. Wilson was sent on it because his wife, a CIA analyst, recommended him. Then, on return to the U.S., Wilson submitted an article to the New York Times revealing publicly what he found on his classified mission. Whether he was liberal or conservative, a supporter or critic of the Iraq intervention, what Wilson did was in violation of fundamental security requirements---and he had to know that it was. Plame's "outing" was far from significant because she was a headquarters, office-bound analyst and not someone
operating under cover in the field. The two of them then set out on a talk-show, public-interview circuit to capitalize financially on the celebrity they gained in the episode.
Wilson should have undertaken his classified mission, filed his report, and kept his mouth shut. This is in contrast, by the way, with Ellsberg, who worked over a long period with classified documents documenting
Vietnam War mistakes and then, finally, moved by conscience, took the risk of making them public because he thought the public deserved to know. Wilson undertook a one-shot classified mission and then hastened to make public what he learned, even though the same information already had flowed from other public sources. Shameless, self serving grandstanding.
I wouldn't trust Wilson/Plame to deliver a letter to the post office, much less grant them a security clearance.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 3:53 p.m. Inappropriate
Mr. Van Dyk,
Your description of my grandfather is just inaccurate enough to mislead.
You wrote:
"Whittaker Chambers, a senior Time magazine editor, wrote a Cold War-era exposé detailing his activities as a Communist Party member and Soviet spy from 1932-7, in which he identified a number of U.S. public officials, including Alger Hiss, as fellow Communist operatives."
To correct as little as possible yet achieve accuracy, I recommend the following:
"Whittaker Chambers, a senior Time magazine editor, testified under subpoena in August 1948 before the House on Un-American Activities Committee that former Federal employees had served in his Soviet underground spy network during the 1930s. Among those he named was Alger Hiss, who was tried during 1949 and convicted in 1950 on two counts of perjury. In 1952, Chambers published a memoir (Witness) detailing his activities as a Communist Party member and Soviet spy from 1932-8."
Respectfully - David
David Chambers | http://www.whittakerchambers.org/
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 5:44 p.m. Inappropriate
Mr. Van Dyk, regarding Joe Wilson you say "Then, on return to the U.S., Wilson submitted an article to the New York Times revealing publicly what he found on his classified mission." Actually a year and a half passed from Mr. Wilson's trip to Africa and his submitting the article to the NY Times. During that year and a half the Bush administration continued to use the false story of Iraq's attempt to purchase yellow cake uranium as justification for launching an invasion. Joe Wilson didn't go to the press until after the US invaded Iraq, partly based on the false impression that Hussein had nukes.
You may not agree with what Mr. Wilson did, but it doesn't justify distorting the facts.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 6:33 p.m. Inappropriate
Dear Ted,
While I agree with your thesis that wars have been started or accelerated because of false or manipulated intelligence (think Gulf of Tonkin or the USS Maine) there's zero evidence of that with the Zimmermann Telegram. Yes, it was British code breakers who intercepted the telegram and, yes, it was strategically timed. However, there's no intelligence that I'm aware of that it was a "clever British fake." Please point to a source, otherwise I'm sticking with Barbara Tuchman.
Cheers, PJ
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 7:34 p.m. Inappropriate
"Re: Wikileaks - In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble." -- Ron Paul
This is one of the few times I agree with Ron Paul.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 9:33 p.m. Inappropriate
It seems like a strange kind of journalism that demands secrets stay secret.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 11:11 p.m. Inappropriate
Am I the only one to read the comments first? Thanks guys for a good read.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 11:20 p.m. Inappropriate
TVD, twice you've written that Ms Palme was a headquarters worker, as if that makes her status as an undercover worker ok to reveal. She had worked in the field prior to her assignment at HQ, and that made those she worked with, whether they knew of her connections or not, vulnerable to those that would take offense at CIA interference. If you find the WikiLeaks publication reckless, outing her is in the same ballpark. Andy has pointed out your error on the timeline, and I'll add that their media blitz occurred only after their good names had been already been dragged through the mud by administration insiders and their media enablers. They ought to be able to defend themselves in the same court. That is the standard in a free country, anyway. Further, there's a high level advisor sitting in prison because of his part in not really outing her, perhaps Scooter Libby missed a bet not having you on his defense team.
Posted Sat, Dec 4, 11:35 p.m. Inappropriate
Sorry, that was -ep- who got the timeline corrected. I regret the error.
Posted Sun, Dec 5, 8:50 a.m. Inappropriate
It is possible to locate and withhold details in a body of raw text that have obvious ramifications for individuals or national security, and yet still present a detailed picture of how international diplomacy operates. As far as I can tell, the most responsible news agencies went through the cables and did just that. Despite their obvious flaws, I am more willing to extend my trust to them than to the Pentagon (Mr. Van Dyk's former employer) or State Department to make those decisions.
True, there are no earth-shattering surprises in the WikiLeaks material. However, it has helped me to gain perspective, and knocked me out of my stupor that too often has me wanting to hide my head in the sand these days.
Note that the New York Times has assigned individual reporters to look at specific aspects of the leaks--for the most part, country-specific--and to act as interpreters of the fine details. Excellent reading, horrifying stuff, which helps me gain perspective on the dirty behind-the-scenes business that has the potential to affect my life and the lives of millions of others in very large ways.
So Julian Assange is as flawed as the people who are the central characters in the cables? Yawn. Right now the adage about laws and sausages comes to mind, if you like either, you shouldn't watch them being made. I disagree, I think seeing the entire process is a good thing.
Posted Sun, Dec 5, 12:25 p.m. Inappropriate
Ted, you are up to your tricks.
You offer the absurd idea that Assange "...has gone so far as to suggest the United States is attempting to assassinate him."
But you neglect in fact the many cries for Assange' murder, as well as kidnapping him by Senator Lieberman.
So why do you purport to be shocked -- yes shocked! -- that Assange might fear assassination?
Posted Sun, Dec 5, 3:46 p.m. Inappropriate
No, Anitra, you're not the only one to read the comments first. I figured I could probably read the comments and get a good sense of the article. I've learned that to be true with Mr. Van Dyk's articles, and it's much more tolerable.
Posted Sun, Dec 5, 8:26 p.m. Inappropriate
While WikiLeaks is dripping with examples of US incompetence, what is totally galling is how the assessments of Latin America have been so wrong. The USA acts like a bully using the IMF and the World bank to force countries to adhere to our agenda, no matter if it's good for them or not. Some public disclosure of this mess may help us treat our allies better and slow the decline of our Empire.
But as Tom Friedman noted in the NYTimes today, what it truly shows is how little leverage the USA has these days. High debt and a fossil fuel addition leave us with some really really bad bed fellows.
Posted Mon, Dec 6, 8:18 a.m. Inappropriate
What happened to having an "informed electorate"!!? Frankly, I could not care less what Assange's motives are; rather, I care only about the fact he is heroically delivering much needed truth to voters worldwide. Plain and simple, I believe Van Dyk's article is misguided - almost as though he has been bought and paid for by "the powers that be." And, I am damn grateful that Assange has put his life on the line to let us know the truth. Ari Kohn
Posted Mon, Dec 6, 9:37 a.m. Inappropriate
For a completely different view point, you can read Paul Craig Roberts take on WikiLeaks here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12062010.html
Paul like Ted was also a Washington DC insider, but he appears to not have lost his moral compass from the stint.
Posted Mon, Dec 6, 10:55 a.m. Inappropriate
TVD completely misrepresents the facts and history of the Wilson/Plame events. I don't expect him to do this, but he needs to go back and read carefully about what really happened. For one thing, Plame ran undercover agents and informers and there was a great risk that when Bush officials outed her, they were jeopardizing the lives of the agents and informants who reported to her. Second, Wilson only wrote his NY Times piece after Bush officials repeatedly and publicly lied about the African situation he had reported on. Where to even start with TVD's mistakes here?
Posted Mon, Dec 6, 4:02 p.m. Inappropriate
Mr Van Dyk's piece reads like something from the UK tabloid press (and that's not intended as a compliment). All that's missing is a picture of Assange in fishnets and a gestapo hat.
Admittedly, reading his Q&A; with The Guardian newspaper in the UK, Assange is hardly a barrel of laughs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks
Then again, as noted in the comments above, there have been various calls for his kidnapping and/or assassination, which could put even the most determined optimist on a bit of a downer. Even if Mr Van Dyk seems to think such notions are fanciful. I mean, really, the US assassinate people overseas who p*** them off?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-eviatar/al-awlaki-decision-leaves_b_793348.html
(By the way, I'd be interested to see the source of Mr Van Dyk's claim that Assange himself suggests 'the United States is attempting to assassinate him.')
On WikiLeaks' indiscriminate release of the material in question, Mr Van Dyk claims: 'The dump is so massive, and so undifferentiated, that it could only have been undertaken for destructive purposes.' One man's gusher is another man's dribble, it seems. So far, around 900 of 251,000 pieces of information have been released online by WikiLeaks, according to Thomas S Blanton of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. He was speaking on Newshour (06/12/2010 2100 GMT), on the BBC World Service.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
So really, a gusher?
Says Blanton, in his assessment of WikiLeaks and their responsibility, or irresponsibility:
'...saying that this is a reckless dump - that is not true, yet'.
As for Mr Van Dyk's assertion that no-one at the New York Times gave the matter much thought, the NYT says it took the following measures:
'After its own redactions, The Times sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national interest. After reviewing the cables, the officials — while making clear they condemn the publication of secret material — suggested additional redactions. The Times agreed to some, but not all. The Times is forwarding the administration’s concerns to other news organizations and, at the suggestion of the State Department, to WikiLeaks itself. In all, The Times plans to post on its Web site the text of about 100 cables — some edited, some in full — that illuminate aspects of American foreign policy.' NYT 11/29/10
Full piece here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29editornote.html
Other correspondents have drawn attention to Mr Van Dyk's long and thorough consideration of the Wilson/Plame affair.
Posted Tue, Dec 7, 3:50 p.m. Inappropriate
Ted, I'd be really interested in your take on the revelations from the leaked cables.
Your musings about how today's leaks disappoint you,compared to the Pentagon Papers just make you seem dated.
It's also weird to bring up the Plame leaks without any mention of Bob Novak or Scooter Libby. Libby went to prison, but you're more offended by the Vanity Fair photo spread.
Posted Tue, Dec 7, 3:59 p.m. Inappropriate
TVD and others might want to read the Washington Post's new recap of the Wilson/Plame/Libby/Novak/Cheney/Bush affair, done as a fact check of the new movie Fair Game.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110407989.html?sid=ST2010110407718
Posted Wed, Dec 8, 7:56 a.m. Inappropriate
Update: Further comment, following Assange's detention and the release of additional documents.
First, documents released over the past couple days contain classified information about vital facilities not only in the United States, but in Europe, Russia, and Asia, which would be particularly vulnerable to terrorist attack. Other cables deal with sensitive discussions with foreign leaders which go well beyond the minor embarrassments involved in
earlier disclosures about African and Afghan corruption and Putin's Soviet-era leadership style. We shall see what subsequent documents contain and if, in fact, the rumored dump of confidential financial/economic data
takes place.
Assange's motives, it appear, go well beyond attention- and profit-seeking
for WikiLeaks and himself. They are genuinely destructive. As I pointed out in my piece, previous public disclosures have tended to focus on
one subject---i.e., Communist infiltration and spying in the U.S. during the 1930s; CIA activities in Latin America; wrongheaded U.S. government analysis during the Vietnam War; the presence or absence of "yellowcake"
to facilitate Iraqi nuclear arms development, etc.--and were made public
by insiders. These documents, obtained and released by Assange, indiscriminately cover a wide range of diplomatic/national security issues
involving a number of countries.
The question also arises: Who secured this material in the first place and then transmitted it to WikiLeaks? I doubt that it was the already-incarcerated Army enlisted man who transmitted a tonnage of field reports
from Afghanistan. If he was able to access files on so many other
classified topics, then U.S. communications security gets a failing grade.
The unfolding story makes it seem more likely that multiple sources transmitted the information to WikiLeaks. Stay tuned.
Posted Wed, Dec 8, 11:01 a.m. Inappropriate
TVD, you'd have more credibility with Crosscut readers if you would plainly acknowledge when you say something that's incorrect. Several of us have pointed out your errors about the Wilson-Plame affair. You can read the Washington Post's recent piece. Everyone makes mistakes, though some make more than others. Why not man up and admit you were wrong on this?
You might also want to read Robert Wright's piece this morning (and John Judis's recent piece which is linked) for a more sophisticated, nuanced take on Assange and Wikileaks.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/julian-assange-neocon-tool/?emc=eta1
BTW, Assange is profit-seeking??? I can certainly think of easier, safer ways to make the small amount of money Wikileaks has made. That's just ludicrous.
Posted Wed, Dec 8, 2:36 p.m. Inappropriate
Another reason to support the WikiLeaks website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/world/europe/09wikileaks-elmasri.html?hp
I want to know about these things, and our government doesn't want me to know about them. Reason enough to support WikiLeaks.
I am reading a John LeCarre novel this week, now I understand where he gets his plot ideas from--the real world.
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